Background
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Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is conventionally used for a first program to communicate information to a second program that may be running simultaneously on the same computer as the first program or on two different computers that may or may not be running the same operating system. In that regard, SOAP is used for encoding, or serializing, defined data structures. For example, SOAP specifies exactly how an HTTP header and an XML file are serialized so that one program can send a request to another program, passing information in the request.
Nevertheless, what is needed is a way to serialize an object having an arbitrary structure into an XML document so that the structure and the information contained in the object can be communicated between two programs that may be running simultaneously on the same computer or may be running on different computers that may or may not be running different operating systems.